Sheriff Lamberti's Top Law Enforcement Official Resigns

Broward Sheriff's Col. Rick Frey, who is in charge of all law enforcement operations under Sheriff Al Lamberti, announced his resignation today, BSO sources have confirmed.

Frey, left, receiving an award

Frey is meeting with Lamberti and all division chiefs at 3:30 this afternoon -- basically at the time this post is being published -- to make it official.

Frey -- who had already retired and is collecting a pension in the DROP program -- said he was simply ready to retire, but many rumors are swirling around his imminent departure. Frey, for instance, was deeply involved in the Super Bowl detail that is under investigation by the State Attorney's Office.

More on this as details emerge.

-- Thanks to Rick Scott and the Tea Party, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and I did a bit of bonding today.

Believe me, I almost never bond with politicians. But when Wasserman Schultz requested a meeting with me today (we had never met), I found myself sitting across from her at a Starbucks on Sheridan Street in west Hollywood nodding my head in sympathy at most of the things she said.

After sitting down, I almost immediately asked her about the Tea Party. She talked of how some of its wackier members follow her to mundane events and stand on corners with signs and shout for hours about her.

"Do they call you a traitor?" I asked.

"That's one of the nicer things they say," she answered. "They have said that the reason I had breast cancer was

Yes, they are. The Tea Party talk naturally led to Gov. Rick Scott, whom Wasserman Schultz said was "scary" and "maniacal." Again, I nodded.

Wasserman-Schultz

She said that while there was some rhyme and reason with Jeb Bush, a serious governor no matter what you thought of his ideology, Scott seems capable of doing anything at any time, all politics or common sense be damned.

"He should be in jail," she said, referring to Scott's past running Columbia/HCA, a company that committed the greatest Medicare fraud in U.S. history under his leadership.

"Uh-huh," I agreed.

Scott's incredible rejection of $2.4 billion in federal funds to build a high-speed rail clearly still irks Wasserman Schultz, as it does me. This was going to bring Florida into the 21st Century and be the start of something that would revolutionize the state and its tourism industry.

Instead, Scott threw it all away.

She said that on the day that Scott announced his rejection of the federal funds, other members of Congress literally laughed at her on the floor of the House, saying that it was good news because now their state would get the money -- and the free ride into the future.

"We were going to be the model," she said, shaking her head.

I had a little less than a half-hour with Wasserman Schultz before she was off to her next function. It wasn't until the drive back that I realized I didn't even ask her about Allen West.

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